EARLY REMINISCENCES
by the performers are curious and sometimes very grotesque. They are carved out of wood and painted to represent animals, birds, demons and gods as well as the spirits of the dead. The whole dance is most picturesque and interesting and a sight well worth seeing, especially when the weather is fine and there is a blue sky and brilliant sunshine to throw up the bright foliage and distant hills and snow peaks in the background, and as the ceremony takes place in October or November, after the rains are over, this is generally the case.
It was at Tumlong a missionary lady from China came to take up her abode soon after I went to Sikhim. The Phodong Lama, who, like most Buddhists, was very broad-minded on religious questions, gave her one of his lama’s houses within the monastery grounds, to live in, not thirty yards from the Gompa, or Temple. I am sorry to say she requited these good offices in a very ungrateful manner. She had a small harmonium, and whenever a service was being held in the Gompa she immediately opened it and played and sang hymns as loudly as possible, which, to say the least of it, was in very bad taste. The old lama, however, took it all most good-naturedly and only shrugged his shoulders and said he thought she could not be quite responsible for her actions. Fortunately for her, the people also followed the lama’s example in treating her with good-natured tolerance, but such actions may, and often do, lead to serious consequences and give Government officials much annoyance and many anxious moments.
My experience, which extends over many years, leads me more and more to the conclusion that an extreme amount of care should be exercised in the selection of men or women sent to foreign countries as missionaries, not only from their own point of view, for surely their work would produce infinitely better results if they were possessed of special qualifications, but also politically, as incidents such as I have quoted, only one of many others, showing
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